


018 "David Bowie/quit/Pepper's tree"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [18]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fish out of Water, My Pepper is different, Pre-Iron Man, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three tales of Christmas, Tony and Pepper style. First, Tony has an epiphany about his relationship with Pepper while watching David Bowie in Labyrinth at the Rhodeses' one Christmas Eve. Then, a Pepper-less Tony suffers through a temporary assistant who quits on him while Obadiah tries desperately to get him to a meeting. Finally, on their second Christmas, Pepper creates a unique and garish tree for Tony that he feels compelled to keep. "Isn't there some kind of rule that says if I don't have an assistant, I don't have to work?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	018 "David Bowie/quit/Pepper's tree"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. At some point I'll post a timeline.
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

I was usually alone at Christmas. Now, before you get all misty-eyed for me, let me point out that 1) I wasn't at all sentimental, and 2) there were lots of people who were alone at Christmas, because they didn't _celebrate_ Christmas. To them it was just Tuesday or whatever. Did you feel sorry for them because they were alone on a Tuesday? Didn't think so. Christmas Day I usually went to the movies, ordered some Chinese food, and wished people Happy Hanukkah. Of course, I wasn't really used to being alone at _all_ , especially once I hired Pepper. Even when I went home she was there. But, around Christmas was when she took her week's vacation. That was what made it an unpleasant time of year for me—Pepper being gone. But that could've happened in July or something, nothing to do with the season, really.

Christmas Eve I always went to the Rhodeses'. I descended upon them like Santa Claus, laden with gifts and food, then had a nice dinner and played with the kids. I liked the kids. I wasn't very interested in them at first, I had to say, but once they hit four or five and were able to carry on an intelligent conversation, I liked them a lot better. I related to them, I guess. Unfortunately one day they would be teenagers and surpass me in emotional maturity, at least concerning anything their parents would _want_ me to talk about with them. I had a feeling Rhodey was dreading the day I was able to give young Mikey advice about women (even though it would be very _good_ advice, from a practical standpoint).

And we opened presents, of course. I was the proverbial 'man who had everything,' to be honest—anything I didn't have, it was because I didn't want it. But I didn't mind people trying anyway. It was always fun to see what the kids came up with, at least. Rae usually gave me something meant to be improving, like a fruit dehydrator or a book stand. Okay, actually I wasn't sure how those were supposed to be 'improving,' but that was the look she gave me when I opened them. Whatever Rhodey himself got me often had to be opened in the garage away from the kids, because it was something decidedly _un_ improving like booze or weaponry.

I was quite good at picking out gifts myself, actually. Most guys weren't, to be honest. Probably more of them would have been, but they were too lazy to apply themselves. That was what felled me most of the time. I always had my assistant pick out the holiday gifts for most of the hundreds of people on my list, the business contacts mainly. I noticed after I put Pepper on this task, I started getting laid a _lot_ more in the first quarter of the year—I didn't know what she sent people, but she didn't go over budget, and I had no complaints about the ripple effect. For close friends, though, I picked out stuff myself. Or sometimes I talked about it with Pepper, then told her to acquire the actual item. And wrap it. Because there was no way I was going to a _store_ around the holidays.

So when I got to the Rhodeses on Christmas Eve I always had lots of presents, almost all of which Pepper had _some_ hand in. And she sent along gifts of her own, too, although they were always a little weird. Like the magic light-up weasel, for example. Seriously. Even _I_ wasn't sure what to make of this thing that looked like an eighteen-inch-long furry snake with a rat's head, which turned all kinds of neon colors when you pushed a button. But, turned out it was absolutely perfect for scaring the bejeezus out of six-year-old girls when wielded by their eight-year-old brothers, so score one for Pepper.

"Here's one for you, Uncle Tony!" Ellie told me, pushing a small square package my way. "I _think_ it's for you," she hedged, looking at the tag again.

"Here, lemme see. 'To Mr. Stark, From Pepper,' " I read. "That's me, alright. I wonder what it is. Do you think it's a magic light-up elephant? That's what I _really_ want this year." The kids laughed maniacally as only children could. I ripped open the package, scattering bits of wrapping paper all over the carpet. Rae picked them up almost before they hit the ground.

"Oh, it's just a book," Mikey said with some disappointment, turning back to the tree.

"It's not _just_ a book," I corrected, pleased with the gift. "It's a classic of the genre, which has been out of print for—" Rhodey and his wife were staring at me, possibly because I was holding a romance novel with a highly suggestive yet flowery scene on the front cover. I dropped it facedown in my lap and cleared my throat. "That Pepper, huh? I think she's got a bulb loose somewhere on her string. Hey, open _that_ one, Rhodey!" Sometimes you had to think fast, you know.

After dinner and presents I usually sat on the couch with the kids watching a holiday movie while the adults cleaned up. One year it was _Labyrinth_. Hey, I didn't say it had to be about _Christmas_ , just a holiday. Um, what holiday _Labyrinth_ went with, actually, I wasn't sure. But whatever, we were watching it, and aside from some of the puppets being a little scary for Ellie, we were all enjoying it.

I really identified with David Bowie's Goblin King, Jareth, in that movie. Brilliant, stylish leader surrounded by drooling, dimwitted minions who tried to attract a beautiful woman to his castle by posing as her enemy and setting fiendish puzzles before her? Well, it was a little roundabout for my tastes, but I understood his basic logic. I mean, he was David Bowie, and he was ruler over a bunch of ugly _puppets_. That had to be pretty depressing, not to mention dull. If I didn't have easy access to beautiful women and fast cars, I would probably have turned my genius towards evil, too. I sympathized with the guy. Then we got to the end, where the girl was running through the M. C. Escher-like staircase and trying to reach the baby, and Jareth kept popping up to thwart her. All the trials he had put her through, he said, had been for her benefit, because she had been bored and wanted an adventure. He loved her and wanted her to stay and be his Goblin Queen. "Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want," he promised her. "Do as I say, and I will be your slave."

"Oh my G-d," I said suddenly as realization struck. "That's _totally_ me and Pepper!" Only Pepper wasn't so whiny as the girl in the movie. " 'Cause I'm her boss, see, but really—" The kids were staring at me. "Never mind." I always hoped that one day, the girl in the movie would say 'yes' to his proposal, instead of going back to her safe, ordinary life. Of course, Pepper _had_ said 'yes,' at least to some of my offers, so actually I was better off than David Bowie anyway.

So Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were covered. It was around the 26th and 27th that I started to get cranky, because I _still_ had no Pepper _and_ no parties to look forward to until New Year's, which was nearly a week away (a long time, in other words). One year, to make things even worse, my temporary assistant quit on me. Quit! Can you believe that? Quit me, quit Stark Industries, may even have quit the country and planet Earth for all I knew. And I didn't even do anything to her. Honest, I didn't. I only called her a few times on Christmas Day, and, okay, once she had to come down to the movie theater where I was watching my annual Christmas Day movie and smooth things over with the manager because they'd tried to throw me out for recording the movie. Like I, billionaire Tony Stark, needed to engage in movie piracy, of all things. I had merely been calling Rhodey while in the theater watching the movie, because he had to go visit his wife's family on Christmas Day and needed the occasional break—you know, "Sorry, Great-Aunt Agatha, gotta take this call, might be nuclear war." I was a good friend like that. So I was calling him, and telling the other movie-goers who were telling me to shut up to shut up, and _sharing_ the movie with him. As one did with friends. "Oh my G-d, now the guy's coming around the corner with a big knife! Did you hear that _thunk_? Limbs _everywhere_ , man!"

But anyway, this temporary assistant, I think her name was Debbie-Sharon-Michelle something, came to the theater and calmed everyone down, with far more finesse than Pepper would have, I had to say—not to knock Pepper, but had she been sitting beside me in the theater she would've been writing emails while I chatted to Rhodey, not thinking anything was wrong at all. She probably would've thought the hostile audience was part of the experience, like some kind of _avant garde_ Off-Off-Broadway production. And, don't get after me about calling Emily-Kate-Angela out on Christmas Day, when she presumably would have been with some kind of family configuration, because that sort of twenty-four-hour on-call duty was precisely why she was getting paid a big fat holiday bonus.

So we were walking out of the theater and I gave Madeleine-Carol-Allison a compliment, as it was due: "Can you believe what a d—k that guy was? I think I might buy that theater and have it demolished. Or maybe make every afternoon a special circus-themed matinee so he has to dress like a clown and dance for small children. Hey, you really kicked a-s, by the way. Let's go grab a cheeseburger, er, Amanda? Lucy? Beth?"

Well, she declined, which should have been a sign right there. Next morning I woke up and stumbled downstairs and—the house was empty! There was no coffee brewing, no breakfast being fixed, no schedule of events laid out. Vaguely I recalled there was something I was supposed to do that day, but when I called Sheryl-Linda-Ann, all I got was her voicemail. And the message was, "Hi, you've reached 555-7861. I can't take your call right now, but if you leave a message I'll get back to you. And if you're Mr. Stark, please check your voicemail!" I thought that was cool, that I'd made someone's voicemail greeting. So I went and checked my own messages—which was a little tricky because Pepper usually did that for me—and sure enough, there was one from—aha!—Alexandra. (I was not even close.)

"Um, hi, Mr. Stark, this is Alexandra, your temporary assistant." Good thing she'd said that or I would've never guessed who she was. I got a lot of junk in my voicemail, according to Pepper. "So, er… um, I'm really sorry, uh, Mr. Stark, but, er… I quit!" No, seriously, that was it. I was afraid she was going to go into some kind of long, teary-eyed confession over how she wasn't worthy to be my assistant and all that. But no, she just up and quit.

Well, I wasn't really mad at her (except for the part about not having coffee, because I had never used the coffee maker before), and I didn't really feel like chewing her out—I mean, she'd quit already, so what good would that do? So I just tossed the phone aside and set about foraging for food in the pantry. Basic survival skills had to be exercised, you know. Note for the future: 'Instant coffee,' as in the dusty little jar found at the back of a shelf deep within in the bowels of the cabinets is neither instant nor, as far as I could tell, coffee.

But then I went down to the workshop and started tinkering, so I was happy. It had not escaped my notice that _I_ had a workshop and _Santa_ had a workshop, and that _I_ had not-very-intelligent robotic assistants while Santa had unskilled elf laborers who presumably made way less than minimum wage, and that _I_ was a mechanical genius while Santa was, one assumed, at least as gifted in the PR side of things even if he didn't have a strong business sense. (Come on, giving those toys away for _free_?) So I thought, what if instead of designing missiles and tanks and rocket launchers and landmines, I designed toys? Obviously these would be really cool electronic toys, not like stuffed animals or something. Not that I would ever want to turn Stark Industries into a toy company, because believe me, there were no more cynical, cold-hearted b‑‑‑‑‑ds than toy company executives, and this was coming from a guy who designed weapons of mass destruction. Granted, in our juvenile way we liked to pretend that weapons were toys; but _those_ guys treated toys like weapons, to be strategically engineered, manufactured, stockpiled, and deployed for maximum destruction of parental income. I was surprised Obadiah never worked for a toy company.

So I spent the morning in my workshop, sketching and sticking various bits together with the goal of making the most awesome mini-airplane ever, which I thought I might give to Mikey as long as I was sure it wouldn't blow up. Of course then I realized I would have to come up with something for Ellie, too, which just showed you how much I liked those kids, because as an only child I never had to deal with c—p like sharing or gift equality.

But then the phone calls started. " _Hey, Tony, Merry Christmas_."

I gave the phone a suspicious look. "Obie, since when are _you_ merry at Christmas? Shouldn't you be on a beach sipping a mai tai while some native girl applies sunblock to your head?"

" _Oh, I_ would _be_ ," Obadiah assured me, " _but I had one little thing I had to do at work today_."

"That's too bad," I told him, not really interested at all. "Hey, you know what happened to me yesterday? I got kicked out of a movie theater!"

" _Yes, I heard about that from PR. And Legal. Who heard it from your assistant_."

I perked up. "Pepper?"

" _No, you idiot_ ," Obadiah corrected me in that gentle way of his, " _your_ temp _. Cassandra-Miranda-Yolanda_."

"Alberta," I replied. "I think. You know what I'm doing right now? I'm building a—"

" _If you're not showering and getting your a-s downtown_ ," Obadiah interrupted, " _I don't want to hear it!_ "

I glared at the phone. "Of course I'm not showering. Why would I answer the phone when I'm showering? And why should I get my a-s downtown? My a-s likes it fine right here." Something told me this conversation was going to go downhill, fast.

" _You have a meeting with some manufacturing partners this afternoon_ ," Obadiah stated, which came as a surprise to me, " _and since this probably comes as a surprise to you, you need to get to the office early and be briefed_."

That was a rather long sentence of his and I lost interest halfway through, as I was trying to do some delicate circuitry work on the airplane. "Uh-huh," I answered vaguely, when the noise on the other end of the line stopped.

" _TONY!_ " Obadiah snapped, making me jerk abruptly.

"D----t, Obadiah," I complained, "you almost made me ruin my electro-coupler! What do you mean, I have some kind of meeting? It's the day after Christmas!"

" _They're Chinese_ ," he answered shortly. " _They don't_ have _Christmas. Now put down whatever you're screwing with, or whoever, and get down here!_ "

"Have you ever worked for a toy company, Ob?" I asked thoughtfully, squeezing the circuit board into the housing. "When I convert Stark Industries into a massive electronic toy company, I want you as my head man."

" _Oh, G-d, are you drunk? Already?_ " Obadiah sighed.

"No!" I told him indignantly. Couldn't a guy just be a little off-the-wall sometimes without people accusing him of substance abuse?

" _Stoned?_ " Guess not.

"No!" I glared at the phone, very near to ending this dull conversation. "Look, why don't you call, er, Donna-Kelly-Brenda—wait, that's the girls from _90210_. What was the fourth one? The bookish one who was really, like, thirty—"

" _I have_ tried _calling your temp several times_ ," Obadiah informed me with irritation, " _and she refuses to answer, so I'm reduced to calling you directly about_ your own _schedule!_ "

"Andrea!" I finally remembered.

" _The temp?_ "

"No, that was the brainy girl on _90210_ ," I pointed out. "And possibly also the name of the temp. Oh, yeah, she quit this morning. I had to make my own breakfast!"

" _She quit_ ," Obadiah repeated flatly. I imagined he was grinding his teeth down to nubs, which amused me.

"Yeah, just up and quit. By voicemail," I assured him. "So, totally not my fault I don't know anything. Come to think of it," I added, before he could go on, "isn't there some kind of rule that says if I don't have an assistant, I don't have to work?" That sounded reasonable to me.

" _No, there is_ not," Obadiah tried to tell me. " _But I am_ personally _going to come down there and make sure_ —"

That seemed like an unpleasant prospect to me, without even knowing what he was going to make sure of. So I hung up the phone. And turned it off. And unplugged the landlines in the workshop as they began to ring. And made sure to override Obadiah's override to get into the workshop. Then I went back to peace and quiet, working on my model airplane. It was starting to look more like an experimental aircraft at this point, or possibly an alien spacecraft if I couldn't figure out how to reconcile some of my ideas with Earth-based designs.

Then, all of a sudden—it may have been two hours later, or possibly twenty minutes—there was a loud banging on the plexiglass wall of the workshop, which nearly scared the s—t out of me. I looked up and kind of jumped in horror again, because Obadiah was standing there trying to melt through the window with his glare.

" _Get out of there and get dressed!_ " he demanded over the intercom, in a very slow voice like he was talking to a dimwitted child. Or me.

"I _am_ dressed," I pointed out unhelpfully, like a dimwitted child might. "Don't you know, it's dangerous to weld in the nude!"

Obadiah chuckled in a sinister kind of way. At least I assumed he did, because he wasn't holding down the intercom button for that part. " _Tony! Quit f-----g around! This meeting is very important and_ —"

How quickly Obadiah's conversation turned dull these days, I mused as I disconnected the intercom. Oh, he didn't like that at all. His face and head started to go all crimson, which always made me think one of his eyeballs was going to pop out leading a geyser of blood. I watched for a minute to see if this finally happened but was disappointed. Turning my music up loudly—like, table-rattling loud—mostly drowned out the sound of him continuing to pound on the wall, and I went back to my awesome creation.

People didn't understand me, that was the thing. I wasn't just a mechanical genius, I was an _artist_ , too. And I sang. Bet you didn't know that. Er, well, I mean, I sang when I was sober, on purpose, and I was d—n good, too. When I didn't rely on the falsetto too much. And I had one of those artistic temperaments (shocked, aren't you? I hid it so well). When I was inspired, when I had a fantastic idea, I just couldn't handle being interrupted, because I was concentrating so hard on getting all of the idea _out_ of my head, bringing it to life, that any interruption just derailed the whole process. Ideas were fragile, insubstantial things, like a wisp of smoke or a flash of light—if you didn't grab them right when they happened and try to give weight and substance to them, they vanished, just faded away. And all you were left with was the feeling that they were really amazing, and that you would never recapture them. I didn't care if it was a billion-dollar robot or a landscape painting or a song or a toy airplane—it hurt just as much to come close to something great but watch it slip away.

So I was blowing off a meeting Obadiah said was important. Maybe you think I was irresponsible. If you've read everything so far, you ought to realize that yeah, I _was_ irresponsible. But don't go by what _he_ said. Just think about it for a minute—if I had no idea what this meeting was about or who it was with, how integral was I _really_ to the deal it concerned? Not very. Obadiah always said I was the 'face' of the company, the one people wanted to shake hands with before the adults went into the next room and actually worked out the deal. Sometimes I got sick of that role. Of course, one option would have been to actually pay more attention to what was going on in the company, so that I could go into the room with the grown-ups. But that took discipline, which was one thing neither me nor Obadiah wanted me to have. So my other option, when I got tired of parading around glad-handing people, was to simply not show up at all. Things managed to creak along without me, somehow.

Although Obadiah was being very persistent this time.

Still, after a while he went away. But then other people came. There were a couple of Board members. One of my secretaries. A couple of people who were more or less counted among my friends—not Rhodey, thank G-d, they always went to Florida after Christmas—but this guy I played racquetball with and someone I liked from the Design department. They all smiled uncertainly, waved, and indicated they would like me to open the door, or at least reconnect the intercom. I smiled confidently, shook my head, and turned my back on them. I wasn't mad at them—G-d knew what kind of threats Obadiah had used to get them down there. Personally, I was waiting until he fetched my favorite call girl and told her to do a striptease outside my window. There was a possibility I would capitulate and let _her_ in. But it probably wouldn't accomplish Obadiah's goal of getting me upstairs, ready for work.

Then, suddenly—there was a lot of 'suddenly' going around today—Pepper materialized before me. It occurred to me later that she had probably just used the door, and her override code, which I hadn't overridden (no jokes about me never overriding Pepper, in any sense), but for a moment it was as if she had just sprung from my mind fully formed (alas, fully clothed), like Athena and Zeus. In fact, at first I really thought I had fallen asleep and was dreaming.

"Hello, Mr. Stark," Pepper greeted, and I realized I _was_ actually awake.

Which was not at all a disappointment, because as delightful as dream Pepper was (and she _was_ delightful, and double-jointed), I couldn't actually embrace her, swing her around, and plant a kiss on her cheek. "Pepper! You're back! Did you come back early for me?"

"No, sir," Pepper replied in her usual tactful way. "This was when I was supposed to come back."

"Oh." I set her down but didn't let go. I always took Pepper's presence for granted, then realized what a huge, gaping hole opened up in me when she left. Then she came back and I was thrilled for about two days, then went back to taking her presence for granted. It was like a tradition we had.

"You, however, are late for something," she reminded me.

"Do I have to go?" I whined. The most feverish part of inspiration had left me, fortunately, so at this point I was just stalling because I thought the meeting would be boring—and because I didn't want to give in to Obadiah's badgering.

"Well, they've come a long way to see your designs," Pepper pointed out, but not in a patronizing way. Somehow.

"I _do_ like showing people my designs," I agreed. I glanced up at the ceiling. "Are there a lot of people up there?" She indicated yes. "Are they angry?" She indicated h—l yes. I let her go. "Then I better shower down here. Go get me a suit, okay?"

I hopped into the shower, dropping my grease-covered clothes on the floor. A few minutes later Pepper walked into the bathroom with a suit for me—and one for her. "Why are you changing clothes?" I asked, out of curiosity, sneaking peeks around the shower curtain (hey, she could've been doing the same).

"You got grease on my suit," she explained, and I winced. Pepper was very particular about her clothes.

"Er, sorry," I apologized. "Um, maybe the dry cleaner can get it out." I peered around the curtain to see if she looked mad. "Um, looks like I also got grease on your face." She kind of looked like she'd been pawed by a big, dirty dog. No jokes, please.

"So I noticed."

"Here, gimme your hands." Normally when you weren't interested in sex and a noted womanizer wanted to pull your hands into the shower with him, you should just say no. But this was of course an exception. I smeared some of my special grease-removing soap onto Pepper's hands so she could then apply it to her face and any other affected areas. That was all. Just being a gentleman.

"So have you heard what's been happening to me?" I asked her eagerly.

"Let's speak in Chinese," she suggested. "You need to brush up."

So we switched to Chinese, which made it a lot harder to express myself since I wasn't exactly fluent. "I got thrown out of a movie theater! And, Rae gave me this pillow thing that's supposed to improve my posture, for Christmas. I don't have bad posture, do I, Pepper? _And_ , that person you left me with _quit_! I had to make my own breakfast this morning! Look, I got a burn from making the coffee." That was a total lie, but I wanted to check Pepper's sympathy level after ruining her suit.

"Oh, that's too bad," she said, looking at the random spot I pointed out on my arm. "Next time don't try to drink it with your elbow."

Hmm, ambiguous. I sensed Pepper might have made the same mistake once herself. "And, I'm building an airplane today—"

"You're building an _airplane_?" Pepper interrupted. "In the _basement_?"

"Ha!" I scoffed, turning off the water. "It's a _toy_ airplane. It's very small." Pepper stepped into the hall as I exited the shower, not for modesty but because that bathroom was a bit undersized. "You thought you were gonna get the better of me there, didn't you?"

"I _wish_ I could get the better of you," Pepper replied (oddly this pun worked in both English and Chinese).

"What's that supposed to mean?" I frowned, getting dressed.

She gave me a look. "You got thrown out of a movie theater. For alleged illegal recording of copyrighted material."

"Okay, _one_ ," I said defensively, "how did you know that? _Two_ , I was just talking on my cell to Rhodey. And _three_ , like you would even know what to do in a movie theater. I don't think they have those on your planet."

She gave me a weird look at the last comment, even though she should be used to such things by now, then answered, " _One_ , I get emails and voicemails, which I've already checked. _Two_ , that's still dangerous. And _three_ , I know you're supposed to turn off all electronic devices such as laptops, cell phones, and two-way pagers. Just like on an airplane."

I stared at her, marveling at her cold-hearted yet practical logic. "You _do_ realize that using a cell phone in a movie theater doesn't actually imperil the lives of everyone in the audience, right? Unless maybe it's a movie theater _on_ an airplane."

She looked as if she was going to verify this independently before agreeing. "Do you want to know about your meeting?"

"No."

"Mr. Xu Chen is the head of Shenzhou Manufacturing," Pepper began anyway. "That is Mr. Chen, by the way, I will be putting their names in standard Western format for simplicity."

"I don't need simplicity, Pepper," I assured her brashly, adjusting my tie. "If I can handle you, I can handle a little complexity."

"You don't handle me, sir, and there will be cheeseburgers in the car."

"Oh, cheeseburgers, aweso—You get sassy when you've been on vacation, Pepper," I observed.

"Also the house is a mess," she added with disapproval as we left the workshop.

"Well, you were gone."

"I think I'm going to send you away for a few days and hire a service to clean up," she decided.

"Cool! Where am I going?" Good thing Pepper didn't lead me around by the nose or anything.

We mounted the stairs to the living room, where there was suddenly a lot of squawking from the people who had congregated in my living room awaiting my miraculous return. "Hey, everybody, how's it going?" I greeted, warming up my glad-handing. "Nice suit. Last year's collection, right? Have a drink. Don't touch that." 

"Excuse me, we're late for a meeting," Pepper announced politely, parting the crowd like Moses with the Red Sea (only way hotter than Charlton Heston, even in _Ben-Hur_ ).

I followed in her wake and saw Obadiah, eyes narrowed, start to join us. "But I'm not riding in the car with you, because you'll yell at me," I decided firmly. "Wait, have I been speaking in Chinese all this time?"

"Yes, sir," Pepper confirmed. "But I think he got the message."

Moments later I realized that life was very sweet right now, or rather greasy and salty with some non-dairy mix-based frozen dessert sugar substitute thrown in at the end. I was sitting in the car with Pepper, but without yelling people, and I had a delicious cheeseburger in one hand and a vanilla milkshake in the other. Granted I was on my way to a meeting which wasn't my favorite use of time ever, but the guys Pepper described to me seemed pretty cool. "Do you think they'll want to go out later?" I asked her hopefully, bringing up fond if blurry memories from my time at the Japanese steakhouse with my brothers from the Land of the Rising Sun.

"Probably," she agreed. "Would you like me to make arrangements?"

"Yes, Pepper, please make arrangements," I confirmed, still slightly giddy at her return. "Did I just order you to kill someone? It sounded like Mafia code to me. Do I get to pick who? His initials are O.S. and he likes to yell a lot. Don't let him get me alone until tomorrow, okay? Follow us into the bathroom if you have to, I don't mind. Unless I'm really drunk, which will probably happen tonight, then he can yell at me all he wants."

"He _did_ yell quite a bit when I walked into the house," Pepper admitted, eating the french fries from the fast food bag.

"Yeah, the look on his face must've been something else," I said gleefully. "Although, he should've been _glad_ to see you. He should've been yelling _good_ things."

"He expressed his relief at my presence," Pepper reported, poking at her phone with her non-french-fry-eating hand. "And suggested how I might best apply myself in the immediate future."

"Gimme verbatim."

" 'Pepper! It's about f-----g time! Get you a-s downstairs and tell that little s—t to stop f‑‑‑‑‑g around!' "

Of course Pepper said all this in a flat tone, kind of like a court reporter reading back some foul-mouthed hood's testimony, which made it doubly funny. "You know he sent Bill Gyer from the Board down, and Su Chung, and Larry from racquetball? The man is sick."

"I expect he was frustrated by your lack of interest in your responsibilities," Pepper pointed out coolly. I rolled my eyes but inwardly conceded the point, while at the same time making no vow to change. "Perhaps he should have sent Melanie to tempt you out."

I choked a little bit on the milkshake I was sipping and Pepper looked at me in concern. The moment of recovery gave me time to form a response, however. "You know what's really kind of _wrong_ here, Pepper," I told her dryly, "is that you still call me Mr. Stark despite all the time you've worked for me, yet you're on a first-name basis with my favorite hooker. And you know, if you two are such good friends—"

"You have ketchup on your face, sir," Pepper interrupted.

"My hands are full," I shrugged, so Pepper wiped it off for me.

"I don't think Melanie has a last name," she added.

"Well, I don't think Melanie is her real first name."

"Oh. I didn't realize 'Melanie' was a nickname for something," Pepper said with a frown. "What should I—"

"Never mind," I cut in, deciding the subject of Pepper and call girls was too dangerous to continue with at the moment. Later, I would definitely be continuing with it. "Um—so where are we going while the house is decontaminated?"

"I thought you might enjoy passing the end-of-year celebrations in New York City," she replied absently, no doubt confirming the reservations online as she spoke. "Wouldn't you like to watch the giant piece of fruit be lowered into the middle of the square?"

I looked over at her. "It's not a giant piece of fruit, Pepper, it's a _ball_ ," I corrected. "Is your brain still on vacation?"

"Are you done eating cheeseburgers?" she asked instead.

I peered into the bag. "Are there any left?"

"No."

"Then I guess I'm done."

"Have a mint, then," Pepper insisted, holding out a small container of them. "You have onion breath." I took the mint. "I thought New York City was called the Big Apple," she went on, confused.

"Yeah, but not for the Times Square ball thing." Her look indicated I should explain what was so obvious to everyone else. "It's call the Big Apple because, um…" Here I was stuck. "Well, Google it. You're the one with the Internet phone. And this mint is really disgusting."

"It tastes better if you keep your mouth closed," Pepper informed me. "Now, Mr. Li Wei is Mr. Chen's son-in-law and heir to the company…"

Here's another story about Pepper and Christmas. This was early on, about the second year she worked for me. For this story it might help if I explained that my office was _huge_ , like, a twenty-foot ceiling, massive window wall at my back, ridiculously large desk in the middle. Plus lots of other stuff, of course, but these facts were the most relevant here.

I wandered back to my office one day after lunch, just after Thanksgiving. It was a good thing I had put away three Scotches with my steak, because I needed all the buffer I could get against the horrors awaiting me.

I stopped in the doorway of the outer office, gazing around and steeling myself to walk through it. I honestly didn't know which I found more disturbing—quilted kittens dressed as Pilgrims, or quilted kittens peeping out of stockings. Apparently few people in the world shared my discomfort, because there seemed to be an endless number of companies manufacturing slight variations on the theme. All of whose wares were now displayed around me, along with dancing Santa dolls, wooden die-cut pine trees, and those freakish snowmen made from Styrofoam whose twiggy arms seemed poised to reach out and grab me.

I _was_ alone in this distaste, wasn't I?

Having gotten over the initial sugar shock of the new interior design I strode quickly through it up to Pepper's desk. "So… you ladies decorated for Christmas over lunch, I take it?" I commented in a dry tone. "I trust this was accompanied by much giggling and eating of chocolate. Except for you, Pepper, I know you don't giggle." Confirmation of the lunch hour's estrogen-filled activities met my remark. "Where's my—" Pepper handed me a folder. "And the—" She handed me a report. "What about the—" She handed me a memo. "Hang on, this wasn't what I was going to ask for." A rare misstep from Ms. Smith?

"It's what you meant," she assured me.

I looked again. "Oh, you're right," I realized. "Thanks, Pepper." I ducked into my office.

And came right back out again. My three grandmotherly secretaries, those lovers of ceramic light-up Rudolphs and Dickensian snowglobes, studiously avoided making eye contact with me. That was okay. I knew who was to blame here.

"You decorated my office," I stated flatly to Pepper.

She looked up innocently. "Yes, sir. You asked me to."

"So I did," I conceded grimly. Yet somehow I didn't feel that was enough to have deserved my fate. "You saw how the company decorator did it last year?" She nodded. "With the green pine tree and the red bows and the white lights, where everything was very tasteful and nothing blinked or shimmered thus slowly driving me insane?"

She looked as if she'd lost track there at the end. "Um…" Well, I couldn't blame her, really.

"Focus on the green tree, red bows, white lights," I instructed quickly. "Forget the rest."

"Yes, sir."

"But you didn't want to decorate it _that_ way," I surmised.

"No, sir." I indicated an explanation would be appreciated. "I thought, since you asked _me_ to do it instead of the company decorator, that you wanted something different."

I sighed. Some days I really wanted to bang my head against the wall near Pepper's desk, possibly leaving a Tony-forehead-shaped hole in it. " 'Something different' about sums it up," I concurred. "Kinda sums you up, too, Pepper." Chastising clucks came from the secretaries. I refused to acknowledge them but felt a change of venue might be wise. Never underestimate the admonishment power of women with matching gingerbread boy desk sets. "Get in here."

Imagine, if you dare—if you don't have a heart condition, for example—one of those fake Christmas trees that was white, kind of iridescent. Also imagine one with fiber-optic technology, such that the tips of each and every plastic needle pulse with a pinprick of light, while various parts of the larger tree cycle between green, blue, and a watery pinkish-red. Mentally, drape the tree in the maximum amount of tinsel strands to ensure total reflectivity without obscuring the colored lights emanating from its heart. Additionally, hang _snack food items_ —full size candy bars and little bags of chips, for example—from the branches with shiny ribbon.

Now make it eighteen feet tall and place it squarely between the window and my desk, casting its garish lightshow across my workspace and framing me for guests like the Intergalactic Dictator of Tackyland.

Pepper and I stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the monstrosity she had wrought in my office. Then the words came tumbling from me. "Where did you even _find_ one of these trees this big? How am I supposed to work with this thing blinking over me all the time? How am I supposed to have serious meetings in here about the best ways to blow stuff up, when everyone will be hypnotized by this… _blight_?"

"I like it," Pepper said. "I think it's pretty."

"You would." I sighed and resorted to a desperate, earnest plea. "Pepper—honey—it's hideous! It has to go."

"I like it. It's pretty." The lights of the tree bathed her face in a cool glow as she stared at it, a satisfied, mesmerized smile on her lips. Idly she rearranged some pieces of candy. I felt my resolve melting as her hair turned green, blue, and a watery pinkish-red in turn. How could I even contemplate allowing this to stay? Forget good taste. Forget the distracted guests. The d—n shifting lights were going to give me seizures. And yet… There was a kind of simple wonder in Pepper's eyes, as if she were gazing upon one of the most beautiful, yet comforting, sights she had ever seen. The smile slipped from her face as the quiet dragged on and it suddenly struck me that I had never seen Pepper look sad before. It was a faraway look, like a woman in a Renaissance painting. "It reminds me of home," she added quietly, and I wondered if she'd even meant to speak at all. Pepper never talked about her past, her personal life.

"Did your parents have a tree like this when you were a kid?" I ventured, quick to follow up.

Instead she turned to me with her face business-like again. "Would you like me to have it removed, sir?" she asked, as if she didn't care one way or the other.

But I knew differently now. "No, Pepper, I guess I'll try it out," I sighed. She seemed pleased. "Can't believe you're wasting candy and chips like this, though." Normally Pepper devours food like a plague of locusts.

She yanked a pack of Kit Kat off the tree and started to unwrap it. "You eat a piece of candy every day to count down to Christmas," she explained.

"Pepper, there's, like, ten thousand pieces of candy on this tree," I estimated. "I'd have to eat a pound a day to clean it out by Christmas." She had already finished the candy bar. "But I suppose that seems normal to you."

"Don't worry, sir, I'll help you," she promised, already reaching for a cluster of Pixie Stix.

"Thank you, Pepper. Don't try to snort those, it hurts like h—l. Learn from my mistakes," I advised helpfully.

"Yes, sir."

And in case you were wondering: yes, there was one waiting at home, too. Not quite so big, fortunately.

Codas: Obadiah's reaction to the tree—"Good _G-d_ , Tony! What the h—l is that?"

"Pepper chose it," I assured him, lest he take this as evidence I needed to be committed.

"She must be a d—n good lay," he commented sarcastically.

"Don't talk like that about Pepper," I snapped, my temper surging suddenly. "I'm not sleeping with her." Sometimes Obadiah was just really… _irritating_.

He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay." He gave me a hard look as I continued to idly sketch at my desk. "You're not in love with her, are you?"

I swallowed wrong and started coughing on nothing. "No!" I assured him when I could finally speak. "Didn't you see that hot redhead I took home last night?"

"It _would_ take a truly dysfunctional a-----e to sleep with a string of women while in love with someone else," he remarked. "Almost as bad as someone who'd let this eyesore stay in his office just because his assistant thought it was 'pretty.' " I rolled my eyes, focusing on some fine detail work in my schematic. "Don't get whipped, Tony," he advised me with a chuckle. "Last thing we need is you turning sentimental."

Rhodey's reaction to the tree—"So, you let Pepper decorate this year, huh?" Very dry.

"Yeah." Very short.

"It's, uh…" The noble man struggled to find something positive to say about it, guessing correctly that I had already heard all manner of negatives. "Um, it's… hey, is that a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos?"

I looked back over my shoulder at the tree branch he was pointing to. "Yes. You want it?"

"Sure!" I snagged the chips and tossed them to him. "This is really handy," he decided happily. Doritos of any variety were not allowed in the Rhodes household, except on special occasions. 

"Feel free to pluck the fruit of my tree anytime," I allowed him grandly. "I grant you leave to do so."

"Thanks. What a pal."

My reaction to the tree, after about two days—"G-----n f-----g _blinking lights_!" But I was a genius, after all. A mechanical genius with excellent spatial reasoning skills. Surely I could come up with a solution that didn't involve cutting a giant hole in the window and shoving the tree into the street below. I examined the problem from many angles (literally) and finally decided that if I could adjust the position of my desk to be more symmetrical regarding the tree, the pattern of colored blips in my peripheral vision might be more manageable.

Did I mention my ridiculously large desk?

"Do you need assistance, sir?" Pepper asked, catching me futilely shoving against the furniture.

"No. Er, yes. Is this thing bolted down or what?" I asked her.

"I don't think so, sir," she replied politely. "Shall I have some exercise equipment brought up from the gym? It would be safer than attempting a strength-training routine with the furniture."

"What the—no, Pepper, I _want_ the desk to move," I explained. "I want it to move about six inches that way." I resumed pushing. "It's just—ugh—kind of stuck."

"Perhaps if I helped you," she offered, but I snorted derisively.

"You're pretty twiggy, Pepper, I don't think you're going to add much heft here," I judged. Still, I let her join me at the end of the desk, figuring it was a last shot before I sent for some burly guys from Maintenance. "Okay, one, two—" The desk skidded forward six inches. I stared for a moment, then I straightened up and turned to Pepper. "Wow, you're really strong. I was intimidated by that for a minute but now I'm over it. Kind of appealing, actually—"

"Thank you, sir," Pepper replied. "I imagine it was just stuck."

My visitors' reactions to the tree—mostly a blossoming of derision, before quickly subsiding into confusion and awkwardness as I failed to acknowledge the outrageousness of the freakish Christmas perversion behind me. I had an awesome deadpan. And a juvenile giggle as soon as the office was empty. So, it wasn't _all_ bad. Really, the only problem was that the effectiveness wore off as people got used to seeing it—every year.

* * *


End file.
